Umbridge's Guide to Breaking the Rules
by RainbowJello
Summary: A muggle girl discovers the magical world in the neighbor's backyard. What does any of this have to do with Professor Umbridge? Oh, you'll find out sooner or later... mystery, magic, and drama. All with a bunch of adventurous eight-year-old protagonists. What's not to like? (Update: Ever so slightly AU, but just because of details from Pottermore)
1. Chapter 1 - New Year's Eve

You believe in fire, don't you? The immaculate substance that burns oxygen into light, the masterless element? Well, what about on a bitterly cold evening? Can fire become unreal in the face of iced-over doorsteps and air so fresh it might as well be alive?

One such December evening brought Jane Fulford's mother to the door. She burst in with an armful of firework boxes, chin tucked close to her neck and weary breaths flowing out of her in an avalanche of icy wind.

She banged the door shut, making it squeal on its hinges. It took Jane's mum a moment to collect herself – One, set the fireworks on the kitchen table, two, brush hair out of her face with her fingers, and three, hang her old jacket on a wire hat stand by the door.

With a sigh, she acknowledged an empty coat hook.

"Jane!" she shouted, pulling an air of positivity from somewhere deep inside her, like a vein of oil deep underground. Immediately an eight-year-old girl had shot out from nowhere, and tackled her into a hug.

"No school today!" she piped, talking into her mother's shirt. Neither of them tried to let go of the hug. It was the kind of hug that didn't want to end.

"How was it?" her mother asked, stroking her daughter's hair. A glazed look came over her eyes. No work tomorrow. Some miraculous feeling bubbled up inside of her, dampened by the fact that it was only one day.

Jane withdrew from the hug. "I cleaned my bedroom like you said. And also the dishes. I found a penny when I was playing outside, too!"

Her mother pursed her lips, eyebrows arching down to save a thought for later. "That's wonderful, Jane. What about your homework?"

Jane made a face. "Uhh."

This was enough to make her mother laugh. "Tell you what. You go set up the fireworks, and I'll see if I can scrape something together for dinner."

Jane's eyeballs just about exploded out of her head. "FIREWORKS?"

With a move like a jaguar on the hunt, the boxes were gone, contents jiggling as Jane burst out the back door. Her mother stretched, looked worriedly at the somewhat empty kitchen cupboards, and then the strangest thing happened; she genuinely smiled.

* * *

"Strike the match, I'll hold it in place," said Jane's mother. Jane knew how to strike a match, thanks to the times when the power went out. They preferred candles to torches, her mum and she. More romantic and mysterious. Something they didn't get enough of, in their tired little house. The flame bloomed at her fingertips, just a matchstick away. Chaos held steady by her youthful hands. She held it to the firework's fuse.

"Run!" her mother yelled. They ran away, laughing, to the edge of the yard. Jane was scooped up in her mother's arms once again. She hadn't seen a firework up close in ages, so she stuck her fingers in her ears.

The light was fantastic. The sound erupted, first like a whistling man, then louder. A thunderclap, an ecstatic crack of light, a rain shower of crackling zig zags in purple and green. It didn't go up very far, only around three meters in the air.

Both of them stared, mesmerized, until it was only smoke.

"I'll light this one," her mother said girlishly, running up to the box. She waved her hands around to disperse the smoke. There were two more large-ish ones.

For the rest of the night, they watched their dreams go up in fireworks, and all their worries blow away in the leftover smoke. The second one was red, the last one was white.

Jane sank into the grass, savoring everything. The immediate silence after the explosions was just as satisfying as the light itself. "Mum, what time is it?"

Mum glanced at the sky. "Eleven-o'clock." All the worry lines had smoothed themselves away. She sat down beside her daughter, feeling cool dewdrops on her hands and ankles. It had been bitterly cold, but not after running back and forth, lighting fireworks.

They sat there for a few minutes, silence ringing in their ears. The sky was a parade of multicoloured smoke. Distant bangs and sparkles whizzed from neighboring yards, just far enough away to be white noise. Distance from everything. They sat, separate from time.

Then, suddenly, everything changed. A violence of color spat out from the yard next door, from the house that no one lived in. Jane immediately stood up.

Balls of liquid light, flashing gold and silver and bronze, floated up into the air, did a semi circle in place like raindrops in a whirlpool, then fell back down. It was unlike any firework Jane had ever seen.

She said so. She felt riveted to the ground, unable to move. Momentum built up until she was running to the fence and jumping with all her might. But of course, she couldn't see over. It was fairly good wood too, so no holes to peer through. Finally, she turned to face her mother. _"Wow,"_ she said in an awed whisper. They were so fluid, so imaginative, so… so different. They were almost _magical._

That was the moment when Jane Fulford decided she _had_ to see who lived on the other side of the fence.


	2. Chapter 2 - The House

Jane couldn't sleep. Her mind kept returning to those ethereal balls of light, dancing in the air like little skirts donned by invisible dancers. In her dreams, they spoke to her. They had faces and names, with eerie but beautiful music playing in the background.

Her bedroom came into focus slowly. Jane lifted her head, feeling a bit like she was in the wrong world. Mother was still asleep. The window showed gentle dawn-light trickling in, twilight blue with golden edges. Squinting her eyes, she found the outline of the doorframe, then the closet, then the floorboards.

Jane had a system for this. If the mattress creaked when she rolled off of it, she'd stay. If it stayed quiet, she was clear to go. She'd only snuck out a few times, and never beyond the front yard. Today was different. Today was fireworks day.

The mattress teetered at the edge of complaining. Jane expertly leaned her shoulder in the opposite direction, giving the mattress enough balance to keep silent. Then, in nothing but her underclothes and pajamas, she ran away.

* * *

The neighboring house looked the same as ever. Wide, shuttered windows with cracks running through them. A door with missing hinges. This place had been rented long ago, but now was nothing but a vandal's work of art. A large, incoherent scribble covered the left half of the roof in metallic purple spray paint. The flower patch smelled like rotten eggs, and shattered glass decorated the front porch.

Jane Fulford gulped. Sharp, terrible wind whistled through her hair and ears, stinging her cheeks. Wouldn't it be better to find a way over the fence? Looking at the front of it made her hands clammy and her toes curl up. Witches or demons or some exorcism ritual could have caused those fireworks. Or murderers, or drug dealers. Every muscle in her body went tense. _Wait until morning,_ she begged herself. _Wait. Until. Morning._

 _No. Why should I? I've read loads of stories about demons and witches and the like. They live in spooky houses in the woods. Does this look like the woods?_

 _...Well, there's a tree in the front yard..._

 _Oh, come off it! You're going to have to go in there, or you'll stop dreaming about the orbs and start having nightmares about this stupid house instead!_

The thing that finally pushed her over the edge was thinking about what would happen if she kept standing here until mum woke up, and then how cross mum would be, and then how terrible their day off together would be. But she'd come this far, which was too far to run away from _now._

Plus, her friends would be so impressed. They had dared eachother to go inside so many time she'd lost count, and _she_ would be the first one to actually go.

She steeled herself and approached the house, too afraid to open her eyes all the way, too afraid to close them. Underbrush had taken over the front yard, so she had to step carefully, and it cast dark, intricate shadows on her face. Nothing but a two-and-a-half foot wooden gate stood between her and the backyard. She could smell something burning.

Jane stopped. Why hadn't she thought this through? What would she do once she got into the backyard? What was she even _looking_ for?

But now that she'd done it, she had to press on. All the way through the house. All the way through the yard. All she'd done is make sure she didn't get killed by walking into a front-door booby trap. Haunted houses always had those. She just had to see if there was anyone living here. People that could have set off the fireworks. Although just looking at the state of the house should've answered that question for her. Jane continued through the plants, shivering tremendously.

 _January,_ she cursed. Bad things always happened in January. Last year had been the worst month of her entire life. The year before that, well... she wouldn't think about that. Vines tickled and beetles squirmed beneath her feet, making her recoil, at first. It was much darker in the backyard, once she'd passed through a rust-encrusted little gate that was stuck open and leaning sideways. It smelled... cleaner. Earthier. Colder. Pine trees stood around the borders, rustling like they were whispering. She could see the sky above her, the pebbles below, but everything else was indiscernable. Luckily, Jane wasn't particularly afraid of the dark.

"Hello," she whispered to the trees, feeling an urge to introduce herself. "I'm looking for someone. It will only take a few minutes."

Jane shivered. If only there was some magic spell you could whisper, some torch that worked in your mind instead of on batteries. She would pull it out, and chase all the horrible things away. The things in her imagination that drooled and dripped and growled.

As her eyes adjusted, she noticed a set of stairs. An enormous spiderweb had been built over the frame, but she simply snapped it apart with a long stick. She kept the image of the fireworks firmly in her mind, and had to wait several seconds before the memory was strong enough to let her enter through the back door.

Things were impossible to see inside, so Jane went by touch. Terror riveted her feet to the earth in these moments, and if gravity had vanished she would've stayed exactly where she was. All her hairs stood on end. But she _had_ to find out about the fireworks. Dust swirled around her as she entered, appraising her and then settling in on her pajamas. Suddenly, her knee bumped a table so hard she fell over. Dust avalanched into her face. Dishes rattled around on the lopsided table, but the sound got absorbed into the dusty air within moments.

Jane's heartrate did not get absorbed. She couldn't move, until she imagined something creeping up behind her, at which point she twirled around, getting onto her feet and trembling erratically. Something skin-like brushed her hand.

Jane froze. Every bone in her body turned to ice. At the same time, she inhaled enough dust and cobweb to fill a salt shaker and screamed.

 _"Shh, shh!"_ hissed a young voice. Jane kept her mouth open in case more screaming was needed, or in any case to keep sucking in rapid breaths of dusty air. She couldn't move. _People were in this house. People. Or spirits, or ghouls, or-_

Neither of them spoke for a moment, but both of them sensed the other's presence acutely. Finally, the hand reached out and touched Jane's arm again. She stiffened, pupils dilating, but didn't say anything. Maybe the other person, whoever they were, was just as scared as she was. _Yes, I'm human,_ she thought to herself, _but are_ they _?_

Suddenly, she remembered why she'd come here, and withdrew her arm from their uncertain touch. "I saw fireworks," she whispered into the dark. It felt like she was speaking _to_ the dark, or to the house, at least. It made her feel powerful, like a magician who could talk to stones and make them dance.

"Fireworks?" the voice echoed. It sounded like a boy's voice, now.

"Yes. I want to know about them."

She tried to keep all tremor out of her voice. It didn't do to sound afraid when dealing with ghosts. If he was a ghost. She didn't think so-but she didn't think he _wasn't,_ either. Maybe he could be both. Or- her heart clenched- a boy _possessed_ by a ghost. Not that she believed in things like th-that.

"What fireworks?" He sounded afraid. Could ghosts be afraid?

He _knew_ what she was talking about. She could just hear it in his voice, the little devil. Jane stiffened her upper lip and described them. "Silvery and gold, round things that floated around in the air." Now her voice sounded defiant, even though she was still trembling like a leaf. "I saw them in your backyard."

For a long time, there was no answer. Then: "I can't tell you."

" _Show_ me."

"I can't. I- Well..."

She waited, heartbeat slowing down as she listened.

"Have you heard of Armando Dippet?"

A test. Easy. "Yes."

But the voice didn't say another word. Maybe he sensed that she was lying. Maybe he simply disappeared. Maybe he left for some other reason, in some other way; but he was gone. Her heart sank. All this way, and she'd only met a scared ghost boy.

The way back to her bed was tinged with disappointment. She made her way quickly, ignoring any residue of fear that jumped up at the sight of the undergrowth or the house. As she slipped back into bed, the light outside glowed dim orange. The sun was rising.

That morning, whether she slept or not, one thing was clear: she would have to go back to that house.


End file.
